Quantitative characterization of run-and-tumble statistics in bulk bacterial suspensions.

We introduce a numerical method to extract the parameters of run-and-tumble dynamics from experimental measurements of the intermediate scattering function. We show that proceeding in Laplace space is unpractical and employ instead renewal processes to work directly in real time. We first validate our approach against data produced using agent-based simulations. This allows us to identify the length and time scales required for an accurate measurement of the motility parameters, including tumbling frequency and swim speed. We compare different models for the run-and-tumble dynamics by accounting for speed variability at the single-cell and population level, respectively. Finally, we apply our approach to experimental data on wild-type Escherichia coli obtained using differential dynamic microscopy.

Characterization and Control of the Run-and-Tumble Dynamics of Escherichia Coli.

We characterize the full spatiotemporal gait of populations of swimming Escherichia coli using renewal processes to analyze the measurements of intermediate scattering functions. This allows us to demonstrate quantitatively how the persistence length of an engineered strain can be controlled by a chemical inducer and to report a controlled transition from perpetual tumbling to smooth swimming. For wild-type E. coli, we measure simultaneously the microscopic motility parameters and the large-scale effective diffusivity, hence quantitatively bridging for the first time small-scale directed swimming and macroscopic diffusion.

Long-range hydrodynamic forces in liquid FM-AFM.

We study the effects of hydrodynamic forces in frequency-modulation AFM experiments (FM-AFM) in liquid. We first establish the theoretical equations needed to derive the interaction stiffness k int and the damping ß int due to the hydrodynamic forces from the frequency shift and the excitation amplitude. We develop specific FM-AFM experiments to measure the variation of k int and ß int over a large range of distance in water up to 200 µm. Comparison between theory and experiments point out that the evolution of k int at short and long distance arises from unsteady hydrodynamic forces on the cantilever. On the other hand, ß int is small at long distance and diverges at short probe-surface distance, as predicted by the classical Reynolds sphere model.

Probing the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Catalytic Janus Particles with Single-Particle Tracking and Differential Dynamic Microscopy.

We demonstrate differential dynamic microscopy and particle tracking for the characterization of the spatiotemporal behavior of active Janus colloids in terms of the intermediate scattering function (ISF). We provide an analytical solution for the ISF of the paradigmatic active Brownian particle model and find striking agreement with experimental results from the smallest length scales, where translational diffusion and self-propulsion dominate, up to the largest ones, which probe effective diffusion due to rotational Brownian motion. At intermediate length scales, characteristic oscillations resolve the crossover between directed motion to orientational relaxation and allow us to discriminate active Brownian motion from other reorientation processes, e.g., run-and-tumble motion. A direct comparison to theoretical predictions reliably yields the rotational and translational diffusion coefficients of the particles, the mean and width of their speed distribution, and the temporal evolution of these parameters.

Motile bacteria in a critical fluid mixture.

We studied the swimming of Escherichia coli bacteria in the vicinity of the critical point in a solution of the nonionic surfactant C_{12}E_{5} in buffer solution. In phase-contrast microscopy, each swimming cell produces a transient trail behind itself lasting several seconds. Comparing quantitative image analysis with simulations show that these trails are due to local phase reorganization triggered by differential adsorption. This contrasts with similar trails seen in bacteria swimming in liquid crystals, which are due to shear effects. We show how our trails are controlled, and use them to probe the structure and dynamics of critical fluctuations in the fluid medium.

Phase-transition oscillations induced by a strongly focused laser beam.

We report the observation of a surprising phenomenon consisting in a oscillating phase transition which appears in a binary mixture when this is enlightened by a strongly focused infrared laser beam. The mixture is poly-methyl-meth-acrylate (PMMA)-3-octanone, which has an upper critical solution temperature at T(c)=306.6K and volume fraction ϕ(c)=12.8% [Crauste et al., arXiv:1310.6720, 2013]. We describe the dynamical properties of the oscillations, which are produced by a competition between various effects: the local accumulation of PMMA produced by the laser beam, thermophoresis, and nonlinear diffusion. We show that the main properties of this kind of oscillations can be reproduced in the Landau theory for a binary mixture in which a local driving mechanism, simulating the laser beam, is introduced.